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1964年，理查德·费曼为康奈尔大学的Messenger课程作了一系列物理学讲座《On the Nature of Physical Law》，由BBC录制，BBC一直持有视频版权直至被比尔盖茨收购。微软公司已经建立了一个专门的网站，公开讲座视频，供人浏览。MIT的物理学教授Robert Jaffe应邀解释了“为何费曼的物理学讲座今天仍然引人入胜”。Jaffe称，费曼将独到的见解、激情和犀利的智慧带入到物理学基本原理的探索中去，所以今天仍然难以超越。由于讲座的时间是在50年前，因此费曼的少数观点因为最近几年的发现而需要修正。
诺贝尔物理奖得主理查德·费曼(Richard Phillips Feynman)是比尔盖茨最尊敬的物理学家之一，在1980年代两人曾有过几次电话交谈。
比尔盖茨收藏了很多了与费曼相关的物品，最新的藏品是2009年以未透露数目的价格从BBC收购了费曼Messenger讲座的版权。费曼在1964年为康奈尔大学的Messenger课程作了一系列讲座，由BBC录制，BBC一直持有视频版权直至被盖茨收购。这位微软创始人表示他唯一的计划是让视频在线免费公开。但目前盖茨还没有宣布如何处理讲座视频。费曼深入浅出的讲授物理学知识的能力为人所称道，授课也极受学生欢迎，《费曼物理学讲义》是他最著名的作品，感兴趣的人可以在国内的优酷网观看Messenger讲座的完整视频（应该未得到授权）。
Richard P. Feynman
“Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.” The man who said this was Richard P. Feynman and his is considered to be one of the most popular and influential theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. His career is exceptionally substantial and variegated, but all irreverently revolving around physics. He contributed to the improvement of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos during World War II and he worked with quantum electrodynamics for this he was granted the highly coveted accolade of Nobel Prize in 1965. Feynman was infamous amongst student and professors when he taught due to his contemptible and scintillating methods of convening the knowledge physics. The New York Times called him "the most brilliant, iconoclastic, and influential of the postwar generation of theoretical physicists." He was an iconoclast in his own right he was on a playing field that was entirely set on a scale that was heavily weighted against his many awards and achievement, talent and the endowment of genius. The most extraordinary scientist of his time, a unique combination of dazzling intellect and touching simplicity, Feynman had a passion for physics that was merely the Nobel Prize-winning part of an immense love of life and everything it could offer. He was hugely irreverent and always completely honest - with himself, with his colleagues, and with nature. He remains one of the most admired scientists of our time.
Insight & Influence
Some people are born great and some become great. Before Feynman was born, his father prophetically said to his mother, if the baby were a boy then it would be a scientist. While his father was not actually a scientist he was
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| Photo courtesy of www.NobelPrize.org |
interested in the pragmatism of life. From early on his father would tell him how things worked, but he never pushed his son into science. This greatly helped him in developing his renowned objective nature. Feynman had an IQ of only 124, which is 24 points above the national average today. He found influence from his father when he developed his methodology, which was never considered average.He attended MIT in 1936 and developed a great interest in physics. His interests in subatomic physics led him on a life-long quest to clarify the mathematics of this field. In 1942, he was sent to Los Alamos, New Mexico to aid in the development of the atomic bomb. During a swanky party Feynman met the love of his life and his future wife, Arline. Eventually, while working on the Los Alamos Project (link), he married her. It was not until after the marriage did he learn his wife was afflicted with tuberculosis, she would die three years later, just seven weeks before the bombings a Hiroshima. This left Feynman with a severe and unrequited since of loneliness causing him to tirelessly plunge himself into his work. While at Los Alamos, Feynman was quickly promoted to group leader of the theoretical division. He worked on estimating the amount of uranium needed to achieve critical mass. He was required to develop many experimental devices to test his hypothesis without blowing up the Los Alamos facilities.
Major Contributions
Feynman played an important part in the Manhattan project as well (TIME AND LINK). He was perhaps the only scientist in the Manhattan project to admit that
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| Feynman (how insightful) |
there was something morally wrong with the development of the bomb. Feynman was working on his doctoral thesis when he was approached by Bob Wilson to work on the A-Bomb. Feynman was hesitant at first but he agreed after thinking about the implications of Germany winning the war. While at Los Alamos Feynman had the chance to meet big shot Physicists of his time like Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, John von Neumann etc. In the words of Hans Bethe Feynman was not only a great scientist but also a clown. He used to crack safes at Los Alamos and he would quite legitimately go in the technical area with his pass, he had found a hole in the barb-wire and he would crawl out of the hole and then again go to the main gate leaving the military people baffled. He was the only man to see 'Trinity’ directly. After the bomb was dropped Feynman believed that the world was not going to last much longer.
In the late 1940’s Feynman, Julian Schwinger and Shin’ichiro Tomonaga independently developed a coherent theory of Electrodynamics. At the same time Feynman developed the famous Famous “Feynman Diagrams”, a powerful way to handle the complexities of particle physics. In 1965 Feynman received the Nobel Prize for Physics along with the other two physicists. The theory of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) is one of the most accurate theories in the history of Science; the theory agrees with experiment to more than 14 decimal places. Feynman did not want to receive the prize because he thought that the theory was its own prize but accepted it because had he refused it he would had gotten greater publicity. He was very conscious of being famous, and he liked people to know who he was. In the words of Danny Hills, “Richard genuinely didn’t care about the Nobel Prize; he didn’t go around bragging about it. But in another sense, I think it was very important because it gave him the credentials to be “kooky” --- to be crazy.”
Affect & Effect
Feynman holds the following awards: Albert Einstein Award (1954, Princeton); Einstein Award (Albert Einstein Award
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College of Medicine); Lawrence Award (1962). This result had its affect from his youth his father continually pushed him to learn how all the things he could see work, however, his father never had any formal training in research or science or physics, the desire and drive he imparted to his son lead to more accolades than the few awards the community of science decided he deserved. He farther was not only influential on Feynman but his sister, Joan, who became a physicist studying astrophysics and made original studies of the interactions between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere. She was swept into obscurity and gained no real fame, save for her last name.1
Legacy
Most often Feynman is related to two major issues. One is QED (Feynman Diagrams) which is quantum electrodynamics. The quantum field theory which approaches and visualizes the force between the electrons as an exchange force and is represented by a series of Feynman diagrams. The other is his participation in the Manhattan project with Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. He also wrote novels the new Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track and the humorous Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman. He also left behind a more intrinsic contribution that is his methodology and style of approach to the varying obstacles he faced in life, as we all do. This has inspired many a college students (and a few high school) to follow him posthumously and use the energy and contumacious sprit that influenced all aspects of his life.
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